


set it free

by itsmylifekay



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Faraday just wants to have fun, M/M, but he also wanted to blow something up and nearly blew himself up so, everyone's a bit protective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 01:33:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9694007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmylifekay/pseuds/itsmylifekay
Summary: Faraday wonders if folks have somehow gotten milder in the past months or if he’s doing something wrong himself, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what that is.(Hint: it's Vasquez and the rest of their merry band. But mostly Vasquez.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Translations at the end

 

Faraday’s propped up at a table in the corner of the bar they’ve settled in for the night, a building more on the dusty and ramshackle side of things but a building nonetheless, with four walls and plenty of alcohol. They’re all getting a chance to relax, blow off steam in their own ways without having to be stuffed in each other’s pockets, and for Faraday that means getting drunk and seeing how far he can push his luck. It could be worse.

But it could be better too, he thinks, cards sliding and rattling between his fingers as he eyes the men around the table with him, rough around the edges but practically kittens compared to the group Faraday’s found himself riding with nowadays. And none of them seem too inclined to grow some teeth either, keeping their focus on the game and only twitching in mild annoyance when Faraday wins yet another hand. It doesn’t sit right with him that where he’d usually be exchanging subtle jabs and innocent misdirection, he’s got nothing to do but sit back and pull in his winnings. No one’s even glanced towards their guns.

And it’s the third time in as many stops, each town as stale and uneventful as the last. He feels like he’s suffocating with it, the endless dust and sand and not a lick of excitement to cut through it all, nothing to light that fire in his veins that keeps him pushing forward. He wonders if folks have somehow gotten milder in the past months or if he’s doing something wrong himself, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what that is.

“How’s it going, _guero_?” A hand lands solid and steady on the back of his chair and he glances up at the owner, at the intimidating figure Vasquez cuts even leaned casually towards the table with his gun belt settled in full view on his hips.

One of the men at the table shifts and it’s not much, but it’s enough to have something like an inkling flickering to life in the back of Faraday’s head. He sets down his cards and gestures to the bartender, orders a drink for each man at the table and knocks back the last of his own before pushing back his chair. “Was just about to head out, actually.” He leaves most of the money on the table, pockets just enough to break even and strolls towards the door while the men mutter uncertainly behind him, Vasquez at his heels.

“Where are you planning to go?” he asks as they take their first steps on the dirt road that leads through the center of the small settlement. “A place this small, all there is to do is back in there, no?” He jerks his thumb back towards the saloon and there’s a quirk to his lips and humor in his eyes but Faraday’s been calling bluffs long enough to see the tension behind it.

He just can’t imagine what the hell it’s for. This whole evening isn’t making a lick of sense.

“Figured I’d go for a walk,” he says slowly, eyeing Vasquez up and down like a challenge. He lifts a brow. “Unless that’s a problem, hombre?”

Vasquez glowers and Faraday wanders off, having won a standoff he didn’t know the cause of and feeling somehow worse for it.

***

When they hit the road the next morning, Faraday pulls himself into the saddle and ignores the twinge in his leg, biting back a curse as it lets him know its displeasure, muscles tightening and scar tissue pulling where there’d never been an issue before. He likes to pretend there still isn’t one. And as far as he’s concerned, so long as he can still walk and ride and shoot a gun, anything else is a minor inconvenience. He can push through the pain, even if the look Red gives him says he’s not doing his best at masking it.

Not even a moment later he feels Vasquez come up beside him and then Chisolm is looking them all over and casually saying they’re going to ride out real easy, no rush to get to the next town and a relatively safe path ahead. Faraday’s fingers twitch against the reins and Jack whinnies beneath him, expressing his own distaste with the situation.

Faraday pats him on the shoulder.

It’s going to be a long few days of riding.

***

He’s practically falling asleep in the saddle when excitement finally finds them. Or him, more specifically, seeing as he’d ridden a bit farther ahead to give both him and Jack a chance to breathe in the smothering boredom of the scorching afternoon heat. They’ve hardly been gone an hour, six figures still clear against the horizon behind him, when a different set of hazy silhouettes appear in the opposite direction, heat waves distorting the dust around them but making it no less clear that their paths are set to cross.

Sweat drips down his neck and back, gathers in his hairline and along the line of his hat, and Jack whickers in delight as a sense of energy returns to the air.

Giving the reins a flick, they move forward towards the other group, now taking the shape of five men on horseback, nice enough looking but he knows better than to assume, or to trust so easily. One hand slides casually to rest within easy reach of his guns and as they draw closer it’s obvious the other group has done the same.

They’re practically on top of each other when the tide shifts, going from stretched out tension to crackling unease as soon as the other group starts to fan out. The promise of a thrill licks like the sweetest fire through his veins.

Before long he and Jack come to a stop, not able to go any further with the men standing in their way.

“Afternoon, fellas,” he says with a grin.

He gets stony silence in response and Jack stamps one hoof into the hard baked ground.

Faraday makes a face, “Jeesh, tough crowd.”

There’s a beat that stretches out before him, the space between breaths and a heartbeat, and he’s about ready to pull out his cards and attempt the greatest magic trick of all time when the air goes and shifts again, the men suddenly looking much more unsure. It only takes a moment for him to find out why.

Sam Chisolm really is out to steal all his fun.

They come up behind him slow and easy, an unnerving kind of casual that puts a different sort of tension in the air, the promise of violence thick under the thinnest layer of societal convention.

“Hold,” Sam says quietly, in that no nonsense way of his that leaves no room for argument. Some sour looks, sure, but no one challenges him on it.

Goodnight rides up by Chisolm’s side, close enough that Faraday can see him without hardly turning his head. “Do my eyes deceive me or do these fellas here look like they’re aiming for fight?” He drawls.

Sam makes a vaguely disapproving hum in the back of his throat. “Five against one, too. Now that’s hardly fair.” He shakes his head. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”

By some unspoken agreement, Red and Vasquez choose that moment to come up by Faraday’s sides looking as stone faced as ever, sun glinting off guns and arrows and the mad glint in Vasquez’s eye. And that’s when something strikes him as oddly familiar _._

He looks over at Goodnight, then just slightly further back to where Billy is standing guard, ever-present shadow armed to the teeth, and sure enough— that same glint in his eye. The look that says come-this-way-and-I’ll-happily-kill-you that Vasquez has right now.

Faraday sits dumbfounded in the saddle.

Because _Vasquez_ and _him_ —

He snaps those thoughts away quick, pushes them into the very back of his mind and firmly tells them to stay put. Because there’s no way a man like Vasquez would have those sorts of feelings towards someone like him. Hell, he felt like he was fortunate most of them tolerated him at all, most days.

“Well, gentlemen, are we going to have a problem?”

The men, who already all but had their tails tucked between their legs, mumble some words in the negative and slowly lead their horses back and away, wary eyes watching their little band as they ride back into the distance. Along with any chance of a little fun or distraction from the thoughts bouncing around in his head.

Vasquez mumbles something about cowards in a slew of angry sounding Spanish and Faraday feels the first prickle of frustration start up his spine, exploding out when Vasquez turns to him and says, “You okay there, _guero_?”

As if he isn’t sitting there without a scratch, six of the best gunslingers in the west circled around him. Like he’s in need of protection.

“I’m fine!” he snaps.

He can feel everyone’s eyes on him after the outburst and that just makes it worse, anger and frustration and something suspiciously close to shame that he’ll deny to his dying day all jumbled up together in his head until he can’t think straight. His leg his throbbing all the way up to his skull.

“Faraday,” Chisolm starts slowly, always the voice of reason.

But before he can get farther, Faraday shoves all the feelings down, locks them away where he won’t have to deal with them for a while and shakes his head with a laugh. “Sorry boys, think the sun’s getting to my fair Irish complexion.” He makes a show of lifting up his hat and mussing up the sweaty hair beneath. Then he takes a long drink from the whiskey stashed in his pocket and tucks it back with a flourish, flicks Jack’s reins and starts in on a riding song, going on ahead before he has to hear the rest of Sam’s lecture.

***

When they get to the next town, Faraday has a sour taste in the back of his mouth and a pit in the bottom of his stomach. His thoughts aren’t quite so jumbled but he still feels dizzy with them, the thick unpleasantness of weighty decisions leaving him feeling as off center as ever, because while he’s come to some conclusions about the strangeness in his life as of late, he finds he doesn’t much like the implications. Or the solution.

Nevertheless, he pulls Sam aside and lets him know he’s fixing to leave, heading out next day at first light. No hard feelings, he says, just needs to be on his own for awhile. Sam gives him a long, knowing look and asks him to reconsider.

Apparently takes it upon himself to tell the rest of their little band too, if the way Vasquez shows up at his door hardly a minute later with a face like thunder is any indication.

Faraday doesn’t even have time to open his mouth before Vasquez is taking it upon himself to push into the room and shut the door behind him, flicking the lock with a finality that has Faraday itching to reach for his guns. But this is _Vasquez_ , so he doesn’t, not even when the other man finally locks eyes on him and looks like he wants to wrap hands around his neck.

“Something got your knickers in a bunch then, hombre?” Faraday quips, trying to think of any possible way out of this conversation.

“Not now, Faraday.”

The use of his name instead of the usual _guero_ makes something twinge in his chest, just enough for him to stay silent as Vasquez takes another step into his space.

“You are leaving.” His voice is low, like he’s daring Faraday to confirm it. He takes another step.

“That’s the plan, yes. Didn’t know Sam was going to tell the rest of you himself though, figured he’d want that to go to me. Taking responsibility for my actions and all that.” Not that he would’ve, not really. Might’ve lingered a little longer at breakfast, clapped a few shoulders on his way out to check on Jack, and then disappeared into the desert without all the messy goodbyes.

And this was certainly looking to be messy.

Something like surprise flashes in Vasquez’s eyes before he shakes his head. “He might want you to do it, but we all know you would not. Too much of a stubborn _pendejo_.”

“I’m going to assume that one means handsome, too.”

“Cut the games, _guero._ ”

“Just full of compliments today, aren’t you?” Faraday crosses his arms and stands his ground. “And I’m not playing any games. You’re the one who came busting in here and started talking at me for no damn reason.”

“No reas—.” Vasquez growls and shakes his head. “Stop this. You can not have expected we would just let you go without a word.”

“You stop,” Faraday snaps back. “I went twenty years without needing someone to mind me, don’t know why all of a sudden you’ve all got it in your heads that I need six.”

His entire body is buzzing with frustration, all the pent up feelings he’s been trying so hard to ignore bubbling back to the surface. Because these were the men he fought beside, who he respected and who he thought respected him. At least to some degree. But realizing he’d been wrong, that he wasn’t anything but an extra responsibility to them, that stung. And he’d been damned if he stuck around and let it go on any longer.

“ _Guerito,_ ” Vasquez says softly, “We never thought you did.”

And that does it, that boldface lie pushing him over the edge until he’s raising his voice just barely beneath a yell. “Then why are you all out there treating me like I don’t know the barrel from the trigger!”

“We know you can shoot,” Vasquez says slowly. “Have seen it ourselves. Trusted you with our lives.”

Faraday shakes his head, not letting himself be placated. “Then what the hell was that last week?”

For a moment, Vasquez’s face scrunches in confusion then settles in on disbelief.

“Five men against one, those are not good odds no matter if you have the fastest guns on earth.” He searches Faraday’s face. “You cannot be angry that we came to help.”

“I’m not angry, I’m— I’m fucking _bored_! Out of my goddamn mind.” He shouts, and god isn’t that the truth of it. It comes pouring out like a torrent and has no hope of stopping. “Hell, no one’s tried to shoot me in weeks, you’ve all been scaring the locals too much to kick up any fuss playing cards, and the one time something comes along that could be halfway interesting you all chase it off before I can so much as try and wriggle my way out of it!”

“ _That_ is what you are complaining about? That no one is shooting at you?” Vasquez looks like he wants to shake him. “ _Está tan ansioso por encontrarte de nuevo con la muerte?_ ”

“I’m complaining because ever since Rose Creek our lives have been about as exciting as an old woman’s. And I’m not going to stick around and be some kind of child to be watched.”

The words are hot and sharp as fire and they burn on their way out, leaving him scorched and tired but also lighter, clean. He breathes heavily into the space they leave behind, not pulling away when Vasquez puts a hand steady and warm on his shoulder.

“I do not think you are a child, _guero,”_ he says. “Immature and stubborn at times, yes, but not a child.” Faraday opens his mouth to protest but Vasquez beats him to it. “We worry, but we did not mean for you to feel like this.”

Vasquez’s hand is still a grounding warmth and Faraday lets some of the tension in his shoulders ebb away. “Worry?” Because what did they have to worry about? “We’re all in the same kind of danger.”

“Yes, but you nearly died. We would like for it to not be so close again.” He glances down at Faraday’s chest as if they can somehow see the bullet holes scattered across his skin, the jagged lines where he’d been pieced back together after the explosion. As if on cue, his leg throbs painfully beneath him and Vasquez nods at that too. “And we know your leg bothers you, that you are in pain.”

“Doesn’t mean I need watching.”

“ _Oye,_ we know, _guerito._ No one needs watching. But we watch each other,” he says, eyes nearly pleading with him to understand. “Goody and his bad days, Billy and Red and Sam and me and the people out there who take issue with the color of our skin. You are fine with that, no? So why not let us return the favor.”

And that...that does make some sort of sense. Ever since they’d first gone back to back on that fateful day in Rose Creek, he’s had no issue letting Vasquez mind his blind spots while he’s minded the other man’s in turn, and that’s since extended to the rest of their group. And he was no stranger to the incidents Vasquez had mentioned, nudging Billy in Goody’s direction if he was looking a little too twitchy, giving thick-headed folks the evil eye when they rode through an unfriendly sort of place. But still, he never went so far as keeping Vasquez or Red or any of the other men for that matter from stepping up and teaching someone to mind their own business when the moment struck.

“Suppose there’s a kind of sense to what you’re saying,” he concedes slowly. “But I hope you know, the more you all try and keep me out of trouble the further I’m going to go to find it.”

Vasquez lets out a rueful laugh at that. “ _Sí, lo sé._ I think we can find somewhere in between.”

His hand drops and he takes a step back and Faraday immediately misses the touch, sucks in a breath at the memory that comes tangled up with the feeling. He clears his throat and searches desperately for something else to say. “Why’d Sam send you in here? Didn’t want to lecture me himself, have Billy stare at me until I broke?”

A careful smile curves up one side of the man’s mouth. “You are a stubborn man, _guero._ You hold your cards close to your chest. But even you cannot hide them from everyone.” He moves carefully back into Faraday’s space, hand hovering against the side of his neck, eyes searching his face for something Faraday doesn’t know how to give. “Sam did not ask me to come. You left your whiskey with Jack.”

Left his whiskey with Jack… like he only does on nights before early mornings and long days, when he knows the last thing he wants his a pounding hangover underneath the blistering hot sun. And Vasquez had noticed. Had put the pieces together and come storming up to his room in a righteous fury.

He remembers that steely-eyed look and the matching one on Billy, the hope he’d so quickly squashed down in his chest.

“So you thought you’d come up here yourself,” he grins somewhere between hope and a challenge, leans that last hair's width of space until Vasquez’s hand is curling around the side of his neck, warm and perfect. “Convince me otherwise?”

“Something like that.” Vasquez’s grin is already slow and smug, smoothing over his voice like honey. His hand skirts up to cup Faraday’s jaw.

“So, if I were to say I was staying,” Faraday hedges, even as he leans a little bit closer and watches the way Vasquez’s go dark with hopeful intent. He feels his own hope blooming hot and electric in his chest. His grin gets a little bit sharper, teasing. “Anything else you needed to tell me?”

“ _Vas a ser la muerte de mí_ _,”_ Vasquez breathes out, practically a growl as he closes the space between them and catches Faraday’s mouth with his own.

It’s heat and teeth and needy sounds pulled from somewhere Faraday didn’t know they were buried, Vasquez’s other hand drawing him in at the waist while Faraday’s own settle for fisting in the back of the taller man’s shirt and hauling him as close as they can manage.

A flick of tongue and Faraday opens his mouth on a gasp, letting Vasquez in and melting against a wall he wasn’t aware was there until he’s pressed between it and the line of Vasquez’s body, strong fingers suddenly in his hair and tipping his head back, getting another long groan from low in Faraday’s throat.

He pushes back into the kiss, swept in the tide and the realization that this was happening. That Vasquez wanted him. That all the inklings and thoughts and feelings that he’d pushed away could unspool like loose string inside his chest, forming something soft and warm with each press of lips against his own.  His toes curl in his boots and Vasquez bites at his bottom lip, a nip that pulls Faraday out of his thoughts and back into the moment, getting one hand up in Vasquez’s dark curls and giving them a tug of his own.

He’s rewarded with a pleased hum against his mouth and then the world dissolves into the sensory input he can just barely wrap his mind around: the heat of Vasquez against him, the callouses on his hands, the sharp edges of his teeth, and the warm glide of his mouth. They’re both flushed and breathless when they pull apart, grinning at each other like half-mad fools.

***

The next night at the bar Faraday is holding court, in his prime as cards flick between his hands and across the table, a drink in front of him and Vasquez the next table over with strict orders not to glower and scare away the competition. (Not that there ever really is any to begin with, not many can stand up to Faraday’s tricks at the table.)

Sure enough it’s not a couple hours before heated words are thrown, Faraday’s eyebrows raised in mock innocence as he scoops his winnings into the pouch at his side. Someone goes for their gun and Faraday has just enough time to throw Vasquez a shit-eating grin before it all goes to hell in a hand basket. Bullets fly and he nearly gets a hole in his hat before it’s all said and done but with Vasquez close by and the rest of the boys shaking their heads from a few tables over he doesn’t hesitate for a moment, throws himself into it knowing the odds are stacked in his favor.

He walks out the door with his money and a fresh bottle of whiskey; the seven riding out with unhappy townsmen at their heels. They slow their pace a few miles out and Faraday lets out a whoop as the adrenaline buzzes pleasantly through his veins, the familiar burst of sensation like water washing over desert sands. Vasquez rides up beside him.

“Feel better, _guero_?”

“Like a new man.” Faraday cocks him a smile. “But still the world’s greatest lover.”

Vasquez’s laugh is loud and bright and Faraday wants to keep it forever, feels a ball of warmth in his chest that the idea that he just might.

Behind him, the rest of the group watches with wry smiles.

“Well, seems those two have finally worked it out,” Goody says.

Billy rides quietly at his side. “About damn time.”

Goody’s laughter joins Vasquez’s ringing across the hard desert plain.

 

_About damn time indeed._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Elementary Spanish and google translate, mistakes are my own feel free to correct
> 
> Pendejo- insult, like calling someone a dick  
> Está tan ansioso por encontrarte de nuevo con la muerte? – Are you so eager to meet death again? ish  
> Sí, lo sé. – Yes, I know.  
> Vas a ser la muerte de mí – You’re going to be the death of me.


End file.
